Category Archives: X-Men
Good News, Everybody! New Multiple Man Comic!
We all kind of hoped it was inevitable, and the big reveal is here: Multiple Man is coming back with his own solo comic book series! Multiple Man #1 will debut in July, the first of five issues. It will be written by Matthew Rosenberg (who is also using Strong Guy and Wolfsbane in New Mutants), with art by Andy MacDonald.
I love wildly inventive/minimalist covers!
Welp, I’m thrilled! This is exactly what I want! I’m not too familiar with Rosenberg’s work, or MacDonald’s, for that matter, but this interview with ComicBook.com paints Rosenberg as a pretty awesome fellow.
“If I were smarter I’d probably say some nonsense about how this was all about the duality of man and the Jungian archetypes that exist within us, how they are often oppositional, and how the ideas of who we are existed before us and continue beyond us. Maybe the book is about what we leave behind in the world for the people who love us and the people who don’t, and how that story is never a complete picture. But, honestly, I just like Jamie Madrox a lot and I raised my hand in a meeting at the Marvel office and said, ‘What if he wasn’t dead?’ and then they asked me to make up how that would work. And so… here we are. Dude’s not dead.”
Sounds good to me!
Some basics about the book: Jamie Madrox isn’t dead yet from the Terrigen Mists, and why he’s not dead is going to drive some of the book. Rosenberg isn’t going to use Layla Miller, at least not right away, but he is going to use Jamie’s friends from Rosenberg’s New Mutants comic. So a bit of boo with all the yay, but I can live with that as long as we get proper Multiple Man back!
This is thrilling news!
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Strong Guy Watch: Through the Looking Glass
Once upon a time, I noticed an odd trend in the pages of Inhumans vs. X-Men, wherein the superhero Strong Guy seemed randomly added to background scenes. As a fourth-tier, supporting X-Men character, Strong Guy has never really mattered much in the larger X-Men scheme of things. He was barely ever acknowledged outside of his home book of X-Factor.
Can’t resurrect your Jean Greys without Strong Guy
But ever since Death of X, Strong Guy has been popping up as a member of the larger X-Men cast. And I found this rather weird. Out of all mutant characters, why was Strong Guy all of a sudden getting background supporting character slots? He was never a member of the X-Men before this, but now he’s clearly involved? Even if only in the background?
At first, my theory was that some editor passed a decree to start adding Strong Guy to X-Men scenes. I don’t know why or how, it just seemed like it had to have been a legitimate plan. There’s no way it was random coincidence. I started the Strong Guy Watch to keep track. But I backed off once it became clear that Strong Guy was definitely a member of the larger X-Men cast, as shown from his recent appearances in Phoenix Resurrection. The dude clearly belonged.
But a new Strong Guy appearance this week has reopened my original theory! What the heck is going on with Strong Guy that he would appear in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl?!
Beardless!
We’re through the looking glass here people.
In the panel in question, Strong Guy is among a wide variety of colorful characters summoned by Loki to help Squirrel Girl fight the Silver Surfer (it’s complicated, I know, but read the issue, because it’s great). The collected characters are immediately dispatched and sent back where they came from. So it was, at most, a two-page gag where artist Erica Henderson got to draw a bunch of wacky Marvel characters. They included Sleepwalker, for crying out loud!
But why use Strong Guy?
Out of all the characters that could have been chosen, why Strong Guy? Yes, he looks weird, and would therefore be perfect for the comic and Henderson’s art style. But she could have picked anybody. Was it even her choice? Did writer Ryan North tell her to include Strong Guy?
Or does my original theory hold: Was there some sort of editorial decision recently that Strong Guy would be used a lot more in the background of comics?!
It’s a mystery I will stay with all night, if I have to! But I will also take no steps to legitimately solve it. Just letting it simmer in my brain is good enough for me!
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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 2/10/18
Here we go again! Last week, I complained that there were too few comics released that I read and review. This week apparently makes up for that deficit! We’ve got Spider-Man, we’ve got Hawkeye, we’ve got Iceman, we’ve got so dang many comics! Including the debut of X-Men Red!
Comic Book of the Week goes to the new issue of Runaways! It’s a delightful issue capping off the first storyline. And just in time for me to finish the Runaways TV show, which I also enjoyed.
Mr. Twinkles! You traitor!
I’ll talk more about the Runaways TV show in a couple weeks. For now, I liked it and am looking forward to a second season.
Comic Reviews: Amazing Spider-Man #795, Batman #40, Harley Quinn #37, Hawkeye #15, Iceman #10, Runaways #6 and X-Men Red #1.
I Do Not Want the X-Men Movies to Crossover with the Avengers Movies
I should have written this a couple weeks ago, but I kept putting it off because I am terrible with procrastination. Chris Hemsworth has been talking about convincing Hugh Jackman to return as Wolverine for a n X-Men/Avengers movie crossover, and Comcast is reportedly considering a re-bid for the Fox properties, so I reminded myself to write out my thoughts on the matter.
It’s simple: I do not want the existing X-Men movie franchise to crossover with the existing Marvel Cinematic Universe.
No contest
Many moons ago, Disney purchased all the Fox Studios properties and the X-Men and Fantastic Four licenses have been returned to Marvel Studios. That’s probably a gross simplification of the situation, but it’s what I’m rolling with for now.
I think Marvel and Disney should wait a couple years and then start over from scratch with both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four — exactly what they did with the likes of Daredevil, Ghost Rider and Spider-Man.
Even though the X-Men movies have been hugely popular and ongoing since the start of the century, and even though there are still more X-Men spin-off movies to come, I think Marvel should just let them end and start over.
For one thing, the continuity of the X-Men films is insane and would never fit with the continuity of the Avengers films. The X-Men movies have used time travel and alternate futures and vague connections to just make the movies they want. They’re currently engaged in some kind of decade-hopping reimagining, where the characters never age despite each movie taking place in a different decade. But yet it’s also supposed to connect into the original trilogy?
Gratuitous Multiple Man shot
The X-Men movie continuity is nonsense. The Avengers movie continuity is the foundation for their huge success.
It’s not like there’s a singular X-Men roster that we would want to see fighting the Avengers anyway. Each new X-Men movie has a new team lineup, with only really Wolverine as the consistent factor. So who exactly do we want the Avengers fighting? The original X-Men movie lineup? Half of those actors have moved on. The current Apocalypse/Phoenix lineup? Why? They’ve barely been in one film, and that film barely included Wolverine.
Whatever version of the X-Men the writers, creators, producers and geniuses of the Marvel Cinematic Universe come up with, it’s going to be great. They took the thoroughly trodden Spider-Man character and created a brand new version that not only fit perfectly into the MCU, but was really fun and new. We all loved Spider-Man: Homecoming.
And we’re all going to love whatever the MCU comes up with for the X-Men.
Off the top of my head, just say that there are very few mutants out there, that they’re a new phenomenon, and that Professor Charles Xavier has been keeping them a secret as best he can from the safety of his secret school in Westchester. Just do the X-Men straight as they were originally introduced, as a mysterious new arrival in the world of super-powers, one whose secrecy and weirdness makes people react differently to them than the public, easily identifiable Avengers.
Also, here’s a great opportunity to quietly ignore that Inhumans TV show disaster.
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Multiple Man Did Not Really Return…Yet…Again
A couple weeks ago, I got super hyped up because the dead Multiple Man made a cameo appearance in Phoenix Resurrection – The Return of Jean Grey. At the time, we didn’t know what these cameos meant and I got my hopes up that Jamie Madrox would finally come back to life!
Well the latest issue explains that all these dead X-Men cameos are just weird manifestations of the Phoenix. At least Multiple Man looks cool in red.
It’s at least a close visual proximation
Also, while we’re on the subject, why did they pick Colossus for the one-panel fight against Madrox? Strong Guy, Multiple Man’s best friend, is in that same group of X-Men fighting off these dead Phoenix manifestations. Not that this comic needs to address those characters in any way, but for a single throwaway panel, it would have been nice!
Looks like we go back to waiting for Multiple Man’s eventual return to comics.
In good news, Bleeding Cool ran an article a couple weeks ago about Marvel trademarking the name ‘Multiple Man’, so that’s got to be a good sign!
Also, while we’re on the subject of Phoenix Resurrection – The Return of Jean Grey, I really, really dislike Old Man Logan. He is just such a horrible character inserted into the regular Marvel Universe. It’s like everybody is just pretending he’s regular Logan!
On this page, Young Scott Summers has volunteered to go in and confront the Phoenix. But Old Man Logan talks him out of it for one specific reason:
He’s still not wearing a costume!
Are you kidding me?! She’s not your Jean Grey either, you stupid alternate reality character! I know this is being pedantic and nitpicky fanboyish of me, but the fact that everybody keeps treating Old Man Logan like he’s regular Wolverine really sticks in my craw. Did I miss some issue where he tricked everybody into thinking he was regular Wolverine, just really old? Do they not know he’s from an alternate reality?
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Henchman-4-Hire 